O is for Occam's Razor
by lady-nocturne-numb3rs
Summary: Chapter 1 of a multipart mail bomb fic. Written for the Numb3rs dot org summer alphabet fanfic challenge. Note Chapter 1 is confusing and very slow to start, but I promise it will get better.


**Chapter 1 of a multi-part fic for the Numb3rs dot org summer alphabet fanfic challenge. Future chapters will be less confusing and have more plot.**

**

* * *

**

"I think there's something you're overlooking here," Larry lectured. He leaned against the doorframe of the FBI's briefing room and looked around at the agents. 

"In the 1700's, the Copernican heliocentric model of celestial mechanics was finally chosen over the Ptolemaic geocentric model, although Copernicus had been branded a heretic many years earlier. The Ptolemaic model, in order to explain the apparent retrograde motion of Mercury relative to Venus, posited the existence of epicycles within the orbit of Mercury. The Copernican model was able to account for this motion by displacing the Earth from the center of the solar system and replacing it with the sun as the orbital focus of planetary motions while simultaneously replacing the circular orbits of the Ptolemaic model with elliptical ones. In addition, the Copernican model excluded any mention of the crystalline spheres that the planets were thought to be embedded in according the Ptolemaic model, and in a single stroke, the Copernican model reduced by a factor of two the ontology of astronomy."

The agents silently looked at each other, not at all understanding where Larry was going with this cosmological metaphor.

Finally, Don voiced what everyone was thinking. "Larry, we're talking about mail bombs here—want to explain to us what in the heck you're talking about?"

Charlie laughed, used to this reaction to Larry's analogies. "It's Occam's Razor," he explained. He sat leaning forward on the edge of a table in the FBI's briefing room, hands braced behind him, swinging his legs.

Don leaned back in his chair and nodded. "That's the thing where the simplest explanation is always the best, right?"

"Close," Larry jumped in from where he stood near the doorway. "William of Ockham was a 14th century Franciscan friar and logician. The concept of Occam's razor states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. The principle is often expressed in Latin as '_entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem_,' which translates to '_entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity_.'"

"What Larry means," Charlie elaborated, noting the exasperated looks on the agents' faces, "is that we need to make this problem easier by eliminating any unnecessary data. That's common sense, right?"

"So in other words, simplicity is perfection?" Colby questioned from the corner.

"Not always," Larry explained. "Sometimes a more complicated explanation is better because it requires fewer assumptions, and as we always say about assumptions…"

"I know," said Megan, smiling at Larry, "we have the same saying here."

Don shook his head. "But I don't see how we could simplify this any more. You're always telling us that you need more data, more data. There's too much data on this case already! There don't appear to be any similarities between the recipients of the bombs, and they are sent using all of the major shipping services. The only commonality so far is the accelerant used. We haven't even figured out where to begin on this case and you're saying we already need to think about simplifying it? How can we do that without knowing what is important and what isn't?"

"Well," Charlie suggested, standing up, "Let's take a look at our variables and see what we can eliminate."

"And that's the problem," Don repeated. "We can't eliminate any of them—they're all unrelated."

"Ahhh," said Larry, tapping his pencil on the side of his head. "They seem unrelated at first glance. But using the scientific method, if we look deeper, we can find correlations that aren't immediately obvious, and those correlations can help us to eliminate variables one by one. Rather than Ptolemaically creating factors which do not exist, we need to focus on which ones should logically connect. Just because something exists doesn't automatically make it a factor."

Don sighed and threw up his hands. "Alright. Just tell me where you think we should start."

* * *

**A/N: I know it's a pretty crappy start, but it'll get better--I promise. ;-) **


End file.
